This invention relates to film magazines for cameras and more particularly to a film magazine in which long roll film loaded onto the supply spool may be taken up into short roll cassettes when desired, which may be removed from the magazine without exposing the remainder of the roll.
In the photographic art certain cameras, such as those used by professionals for studio and similar posed photographic environments in which a multitude of photographs are taken daily, utilize long roll film in the order of 100 feet in length. Typically such rolls will produce from 500 to 1800 frames, depending upon the negative size. The primary advantage of using film in such lengths is economy, i.e., film purchased in large lengths is substantially less expensive than shorter length rolls and cassettes. There is the additional advantage of convenience where a large number of pictures are going to be taken in a relatively short time. However, although large studios generally process the film themselves, there is a growing number of smaller studios which associate with rapid processing photographic laboratories, i.e., the so-called "mini-labs" which cannot process long rolls of film. Moreover, there are many applications of repetitive photography where the number of photographs taken in any sequence is uncertain. Under such circumstances the use of long roll film becomes a disadvantage since the used portion of the film must be separated from the unused portion in a "black" change-bag to preclude light from destroying the film. Of course in a laboratory the film may be removed from the magazine under controlled circumstances, but when this is to be accomplished outside the laboratory, great difficulty and inconvenience occurs if only a limited number of frames of the roll have been used.